Unintended Consequences
by thosetooweaktoseekit
Summary: One-Shot for Hadrian Riddle and the Crimson Lance. Harry has transported himself to an alternate universe in 1971, but what of those he left behind? Ginny finds herself looking for the boy she loves, to see only a destroyed laboratory. Love is the world's most powerful weapon, but it usually tends to destroy those wielding great amounts of it.


Author's Note: A little filler for those waiting on Chapter 12. It will arrive soon... as in at the latest tomorrow night.

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One-shot in correlation with **Hadrian Riddle and the Crimson Lance**

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Ginny felt the tears on her face with her shaking hands. She looked around the room again and again but the vision never went away.

The robes thrown haphazardly on the floor with gaping holes in them, or rips or bloodstains or unidentifiable substances. The books scattered everywhere with a page marked here and a chapter labeled for further investigation there. One book was just almost hidden under six others, and it caught her eye, but Ginny would recognize it from anywhere. She still could see that day clearly in her mind's eye. It had been one of the days she thought saw something in him that spoke of a more childish love and life- something she knew now was just a shadow of longing for that naïve and hopeful boy he knew he had once been.

" _I want you meet them. I think they would like you." He looked so nervous, it was absolutely adorable! Ginny laughed just a little, but put a warm hand on his arm and held on lightly._

" _Lead the way," she smiled. "I'm sure I will love to meet these mysterious secret persons you've been keeping." Harry gave a small smile, with an emotion Ginny could not yet identify, but it made her colour in her cheeks a little regardless._

 _Instead of walking out the door to meet whoever waited on the other side, Harry reached for the bookshelf and pulled out a worn looking and thick book with white and silver and shiny gold swirls on it. He oh-so-gently opened up to the first page, and on it two people danced._

 _A man with a strong jaw and warm brown eyes that crinkled when he laughed as he twirled around the woman before holding her in his arms and smiling at the camera. She couldn't stop smiling and her red hair twirled with them, as the motion repeated. Her green eyes looked at the man with so much love, that Ginny could hardly bare to watch it. Not when she knew that the two people, these two beautiful people in love that were dancing in the autumn leaves, would lose that life and love in their eyes._

 _Not when she knew these were Harry's parents._

 _There was no one waiting outside._

 _He traced the edge of the photo, and his eyes were wistful. Harry looked so tired, and Ginny…didn't know what to say. She didn't think there was anything she could say. Nothing could make that look go away._

 _And that's why he was showing her this. He wanted her to know what they could not share completely. What he could not give her. But that was okay, she knew Harry would try to love her to the best of his ability. What he knew how to give, he would._

 _She re-placed the warm hand on his cool arm and held it there lightly. He didn't look up._

 _She didn't expect him to._

Ginny could not make herself look at that book, the book that finalized the truth that very day: Harry would not allow himself to fall in love with Ginny in return. He was too…gone. After the final battle he became a shell of the fiery Harry Potter in the school days, pushing himself just to make it another day.

The potions still simmering and the smell of fresh coffee gave the appearance that whomever was here will be right back.

But she knew he would never come back for her.

Or any of them.

So she sat right there on the cold and damp floor of Professor Snape's potions laboratory and let the tears fall.

And prayed.

For Harry to lose that look in his eyes one day. That he was safe. And that maybe one day, the ache in her heart that only grew since watching Lily with James dance and dance- well maybe that ache would subside enough for her to let Harry go.

But she knew that would never happen. She knew the look in Lily's eyes too well.

It was her own, full of love for a boy that no longer existed.

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Author's Note: I hope that wasn't too sad. That was not my intention- in fact Ginny was not supposed to be the point of this. But it sort of happened.


End file.
